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Cyber Risks · Krebs on Security

At Experian, Security Attrition Amid Acquisitions

Summary: T-Mobile disclosed that about 15 million customers had Social Security numbers and other personal data stolen in a breach at Experian, the credit bureau that had also exposed T-Mobile customer data in a December 2013 incident traced to Decisioning Solutions, a firm Experian acquired in April 2013. Former Experian security staff told KrebsOnSecurity that an aggressive growth-by-acquisition campaign left integration of acquired companies into the core security architecture a "black box of magic," and that the security operations center shrank from nearly 30 people to about a dozen after CIO John Finch left for the Bank of England.

Why it matters: The earlier Court Ventures acquisition brought in Hieu Minh Ngo, whose Superget.info service gave more than 1,000 paying identity thieves access to records on more than 200 million Americans, and Ngo received a 13-year prison sentence. Senators now cite DOJ figures that 64 percent of the 17.6 million identity theft victims in 2014 suffered a direct financial loss, averaging $7,761.

Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗

Topics
Data Breaches
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